Wiktionary:Tea room

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A place to ask for help on finding quotations, etymologies, or other information about particular words. The Tea room is named to accompany the Beer parlour.

For questions about the general Wiktionary policies, use the Beer parlour; for technical questions, use the Grease pit. For questions about specific content, you're in the right place.

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Oldest tagged RFTs

• Sukhumi
  regnbuefamilie
  Euthemia
  hagdon
  lipsati
  Wesson
  monolid
  watercressing
  notch
  address
  carhouse
  RGSS
  series
  multivarious
  amen
  -stan
  червь
  چھہ
  half
  based
  α΄
  orignal
  dies Mercurii
  manso
  ၐြဳ
  ကာလယဲ
  pasar por las horcas caudinas
  monosemic
  hazelly
  Dağ Türkleri
  Aster
  smeť
  over skyerne er himlen altid blå
  rumped
  Indon
  belly dance
  on purpose
  nasal cavity
  how much
  take its toll
  bok choy
  search up
  don't try to teach grandma how to suck eggs
  speech recognition
  turn the tide
  ne bis in idem
  cornus
  code point
  one over the eight
  green privilege
  Chinese landing
  one's house in order
  native bread
  rhina
  one's heart bleeds
  gender-neutral
  chicken-or-egg question
  otocrane
  Surinam
  no thank you
  mukt
  uninvited
  away
  catalogue
  imaginary
  tweener
  radiendocrinology
  classique
  be
  smuggling raisins
  shadowing
  mandate
  war hero
  war-hero
  eat like a horse
  tacet
  lightning bruiser
  phrogging
  tjälknöl
  efilism
  Jacboson
  Andersdr
  berm
  pirmas
  arena rock
  rayon
  on someone's ass
  caviar to the general
  churtle
  Lipović
  -to
  sum of its parts
  joke
  dunnarf
  Єфінгар
  Ефингар
  初次見面
  unprovenienced
  Bereshit
  

December 2024

Wrong IPA transcription for all Latin lemmas borrowed by Greek ending in -ĕ͜us

Latin never avoids diphthongs when they are possible, but it's true that root and ending are separated by hiatus even if a diphthong is possible.

But in Greek root and ending usually make a diphthong if possible, e.g.: Capaneus, from Greek Καπανεύς, must actually be divided as Cắ-pă-ne͜us (like the original Greek: Κᾰ-πᾰ-νεύς) and not Că-pắ-nĕ-us. The accent is on the first syllable. Wiktionary interprets all the Greek terms ending in -ĕus that end actually with a long syllable as a term that end with a pyrrhic/dibrach. This is not a little mistake: we have metrical evidence by poetry that those terms have a long final syllable in the nominative and not two short syllables. This is crucial because in Latin is very important the correct division in syllables to interact with literature (not only poetry but prose too) and it is fundamental to determine the stress accent's position: not a secondary factor. It could be possible that some ancient Latin speakers, in a popular speech, could have pronounced Ca-pá-ne-us, but if they did it's without doubt an hypercorrectism.

However, it is true that all the inflected forms adds a syllable: even in the accusative singular that have an apparent diphthong (but this example is right for every case and number besides nominative — or vocative identical to nominative, if it exists) must actually be divided as Că-pắ-nĕ-um. I don't know for sure whether the accent in this case could have been kept in the fourth last syllable (we know cases where some nouns apparently broke the law of the penultimate syllable, like the form Valĕ́rī with the accent on the penultimate because of analogy with Valerius: the pronunciation Válĕrī is an educated hypercorrectism; the case of ca-pa-ne-um could be an example of accent's retention by analogy with the nominative. Other examples of broken accent's rules, but less pertinent with this specific case, are the oxytone words or the words ending with a tribach or a dactyl composed with an enclitic that retains the accent in the same syllable, like lī́mĭnăque — in this case with a possible secondary accent on the enclitic -quĕ̀, but this is an other story): the three accent's laws describes with precision the accent's position of most Latin word, but not all words: linguistic phenomena could change the final product from the expectations of a only synchronic approach.

Neverthless, this is a secondary question and the certain thing is that Greek words ending in ending in -ĕ͜us scan -ĕ͜us as a long syllable. I don't have sources and I did't read sources about the possible retaining of the accent in those specific cases.

Other names are Atre͜us, Briare͜us, Eurysthe͜us, Idomene͜us, Morphe͜us, Nere͜us, Oile͜us, Prote͜us, Typhōe͜us and maybe others. Not all these nouns change their accent, like Nere͜us or Eurysthe͜us, but still the correct syllables' division is fundamental.

Please, correct this. CarloButi1902 (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Pinging a few of our active Latin editors, with apologies that I don't have time to look into it myself: @Brutal Russian, Lambiam, Nicodene: can you evaluate whether this is right? - -sche (discuss) 16:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: @CarloButi1902 is correct about all the cited forms. Nereus for instance is always disyllabic, as one can confirm by searching the name on Pedecerto. Native Latin words can also have an eu diphthong, such as seu.

However, we do not use tie-bars to indicate diphthongs in Latin headwords and inflection tables (aurum not *a͡urum), as CarloButi1902 has done in edits such as this. Nicodene (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, I changed Latin Atreus to use e_u; are there any others which need changing? (Spot-checking other terms mentioned above as giving the wrong pronunciation, many don't have Latin sections and so don't actually give any pronunciation at all; others already use e_u.) - -sche (discuss) 17:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Pisin in the toilet

According to toilet:

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: toilet

Anyone care to venture an opinion as to whether this is a genuine entry or someone's little joke? Personally I am not averse to an occasional little bit of humour in examples, say, but I wouldn't agree with actually making stuff up, if that indeed is what this is. Mihia (talk) 22:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia: See Tok Pisin toilet, which was added in 2017 by @Mar vin kaiser, who has done lots of good work in languages of China and the Philippines and has not, to my knowledge, ever stooped to adding nonsense. That said, I notice that the translation table at toilet has liklik haus and smolhaus (both literally meaning "little house/building"), but not toilet. Since English is the main lexifier for Tok Pisin (the name comes from "talk business"), a borrowing would make sense- but it's hard to say whether it's right without knowing the language. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia, Chuck Entz: This was like 7 years ago, so it's hard to recall, but I do remember finding a Tok Pisin dictionary, and just adding words that I found there. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, great, just a coincidence then. Thanks for looking at it. Mihia (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: The Tok Pisin entry uses {{inh}}, not {{bor}} (we have Tok Pisin set as a descendant of English). J3133 (talk) 16:58, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Some collections of Tok Pisin phrases giving toilet i stap we? for where is the toilet?: [1], [2], [3]. (The last one is AI stuff.)  --Lambiam 16:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Katchuu & Plate Armor

At the translations part of the page for plate armour (because I'm American and all the plate armor page has to offer is a link to the plate armour page) you can add translations of it for other languages. I'm a learner of Japanese, being able to read both systems of kana, talk in Japanese, and even read some kanji and know their meanings, and "甲冑" is one of the kanji sets I'm familiar with, reading out as "katchuu" (かっちゅう). I don't believe these refer to the exact same things, as it says katchuu means a helmet and armor, though I like reading the pages for the lists of Pokémon on the JP Wikipedia because it's fun and so I can remember Japanese information about them like their JP names and stuff and maybe even learn something new. Basically, in Japanese, Armaldo is called the "Katchuu Pokémon" (かっちゅうポケモン) but in English it is the "Plate Pokémon" which refers to plate armor, NOT a dinner plate. I think it's most likely because katchuu also generally refers to Japanese-style armor while plate armor is the western-style armor, but they both literally just refer to armor.

I was planning on adding katchuu to the list, but decided to have a tea break here and ask about it since I'm unsure.

ILike Leavanny (talk) 03:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Plank bridge

Anybody know a short English name for a creek bridge made of a plank? I see it is no good English translation for Swedish spång and Norwegian Nynorsk klopp (not in Wikipedia either), but this is a common thing, and has names in many languages, so I would expect to have it in English as well. It is not a duckboard, but it is kinda duckboard brigde or what is it? Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Do these words refer only to a single-plank-width footbridge or to a broader class of bridge designs? DCDuring (talk) 18:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

No, it can be two planks as well. Or even more, as long it is a primitive wood bridge over a narrow creek. I guess it calls a duckboard bridge, but if I create such entry, is it gonna be SOP? If it is gonna be SOP, maybe I can make a translation-only entry. Anyway, it is stupid to make such entry if it can be a real English word for such thing. "Duckboard bridge" sounds too complicated, there surely are many of these bridges in England and USA. So maybe it is called someting else? Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe that an entry for it will have to be a THUB because there's no single compound noun in English that denotes this specific subset of footbridges. The term footbridge itself is definitely hypernymous to this semantic node, and the collocations that come closest to the desired denotation (i.e., small and simple wooden footbridge, plank bridge) are SoP. A look at w:Footbridge#Types didn't disabuse this conclusion. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s why am asking this. Probably I need to go for a THUB. Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Our (possibly redundant) definitions 5 and 6 of puncheon also seem synonymous to some degree with duckboard. DCDuring (talk) 15:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

As for redundancy, two valid ways to look at it: 5 and 6 are currently separated by the causeway-versus-bridge semantic/mental distinction, although that distinction can sometimes reduce to an artificial dichotomization, depending on the terrain in the instance. Senses 5 and 6 could reasonably be combined into one sense as "a walkway or road of type blah; a footbridge or larger bridge of that type"; or "a walkway, road, or bridge of type blah." Quercus solaris (talk) 15:16, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Puncheon is not a very common word in any of its uses. Having seven definitions seems to me suspect before inspecting the definitions in detail. I also find definitions 3 and 4 redundant. Redundancy or near-redundancy of definitions in uncommonly used words (those outside the top 50,000) is common. DCDuring (talk) 15:34, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I ascribe the persistence of the redundancy to the word not getting many visits from contributing users and a lack of enthusiasm for finding attestation for so many definitions. DCDuring (talk) 16:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I take well your point about forgoable subdivision of senses, whereas "X, especially X₁" as one senseid is often better than two senseids. Granted that sometimes autohyponymy or metonymy warrants a second sense, either subsense or not. In the case of puncheon, true that a def getting across the concept of "a semifinished timber, especially one used as a post or a plank" would do for 2 or 3 of the senses there. I have edited that entry before but, to your point (about how wiki users approach editing), each time I've been there I am only devoting a certain amount of time to it, or focusing only on one aspect, and not changing others' prior/existing work unless I notice some specific problem or improvability about it. This accords with the iterative-development nature of a wiki as contrasted with nonwiki. And admittedly my top-ranked focus when editing WT is usually on defs and semantic relations more so than accruing citations, although I add citations too when the spirit moves me. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Puncheon bridge or a bog bridge is quite close, yes! I have made THUB on duckboard bridge, maybe it is a word used same way, but Google search gives examples from non-English speaking countries. Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

User:TimothyL52's English pronunciation edits: /(d)ʒ/ -> /d͡ʒ/

Are edits such as these (dogecoin, deluge) correct? I thought both pronunciations are fine in US English but I'm not a native speaker. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 17:35, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The acceptance of pron variants of dogecoin might perhaps be considered contentious, but not so with deluge, in which /(d)ʒ/ is a fact because /d͡ʒ/ and /ʒ/ variants coexist. MW, AHD, and ODE agree. Some other dictionaries (eg, NOAD) fail to show the /ʒ/ variant. The user might have been looking at one of those. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I restored at deluge accordingly. I skimmed about 5% of the user's contribs and saw that almost all of them were words where /ʒ/ variants (i.e., /zh/ versus /dzh/) are irrelevant, so probably not much damage was done. If anyone wants to check more thoroughly, Godspeed. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

how

Conjunction senses:

1. The manner or way in which.

   I remember how I solved this puzzle.

2. In any way in which; in whatever way; however.

   People should be free to live how they want.

Any agree/disagree that "how" is a conjunction in these examples? Mihia (talk) 20:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding how the adverb senses are distinguished from the conjunction senses, yes, AHD agrees. See its entry. The key/differentiator is that the conjunction sense does the work of subordinating a clause to another clause. In fairness, definitions of parts of speech vary; CMOS agrees on that fact, as does WP at Part of speech § History § Classification and Part of speech § Functional classification. See also w:Conjunction_(grammar)#Subordinating_conjunctions and compare w:Conjunctive_adverb. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I find mainstream dictionaries generally unreliable and inconsistent when it comes to "difficult" parts of speech. Superficially this does appear to be a conjunction, yes, linking two clauses. However, the same label "conjunction" is used for very different grammatical uses of the word, one being the uncontroversial conjunction, as in "how = that" (casual or loose usage), and the other being the sense(s) that I listed.

a) "I remember how (= that) I solved this puzzle."

b) "I remember how (= in what way) I solved this puzzle."

c) "How did I solve this puzzle? I remember now."

Usage (b) actually appears more closely resembling (c), the adverb, than (a), the conjunction. (And, curiously, "in what way" actually substitutes into both.)

A similar distinction is seen perhaps more clearly with "when":

"I remember when I'm prompted." (uncontroversial conjunction)

"I remember when I was young." (???)

As with "how", it is pretty unsatisfactory that these two grammatically very different uses of "when" could be the same part of speech. Mihia (talk) 17:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Yes, the world has no great consensus about parts of speech, although some people's consensuses are consensuser than others'. Speaking of which (or of whom), your objection makes me think of Pullum 2024^→ISBN on page 87 at "The traditional muddle". He's pretty salty at the rest of the world for falsely accusing prepositions of sometimes allegedly being subordinating conjunctions, lol. I give us all credit for trying — chipping away at iterating toward a more accurate state of the art tomorrow. I think perhaps there's something about the notion of "X is as X does" going on here: people feel that they "have to" call how a conjunction when it does the work of yolking a clause into the position of direct object within another clause, because by at least some lights, anything that does that action is labeled as a conjunction. What you're after here is to make a further differentiation within that realm. I can see what you mean. Perhaps eventually you'll be proved right. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The more I look at this issue, the more I feel that listing examples such as "I remember how (= in which way) I did it" as adverbs is "less wrong" than listing them as conjunctions. Looking at some analogous entries:

• why has no conjunction senses. Examples such as "I don’t know why he did that" are termed adverb, moved from conjunction back in 2014 with comment "this is not a conjunction".
• when has no "problem" conjunction examples of this type that I can see. They are all bona fide conjunctions. "I don't know when they arrived" is listed as adverb.
• where does have some "problem" conjunction senses. This may be my fault as much as anyone's, as I do recall adding some missing senses at one point, so perhaps I did not follow a very consistent pattern in doing this, or just added them next to the most similar existing sense that happened to (perhaps incorrectly) be labelled conjunction.

Anyway, I am minded to move all these kinds of uses to adverb where not already. Mihia (talk) 18:35, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

turkish varsın

I don't understand how to describe it. Like in "sadece sen varsın", is it a verb or an adjective? Zbutie3.14 (talk) 02:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

it's an adjective functioning as a predicate. Slowcuber7 (talk) 14:53, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Determining whether "righty tighty, lefty loosey" or "lefty loosey, righty tighty" is the alt form

I see Wiktionary only has the one beginning "lefty loosey." I always knew it beginning with "righty tighty," and both are well attested on the internet. I tried to run it through Ngrams to see if there was any clearly preferred order, but it's not cooperating. Any suggestions? Cameron.coombe (talk) 05:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps 'twould be as well to ask which component orb of a binary star is the dance leader and which is the follower. They follow each other in circles. With some alt forms it feels like a coin toss as to which is the principal one, if indeed either is truly principal. I too tried to force Google Ngam Viewer to work with the whole unit and found it intractable. I realize that it uses commas as the delimiter between tokens, but one might hope that one could simply enter the whole collocation minus the internal punctuation and get a result, plus or minus quote marks as wrappers, given that that's how Google Search works on the web. Alas. Seems like an odd and unnecessary hole in GNV's capabilities, but what do I know (compared with the people who built it). Also, maybe I'm just missing something and doing it wrong. I ctrl-f'd inside their help page for a hot minute but came away empty-handed. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"Lefty loosey, righty tighty" just sounds...wrong to me. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've always heard it as "lefty loosey..." CitationsFreak (talk) 20:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I can honestly say that I have never heard of this in either form. Ngrams shows the parts common enough to graph in AmE, but "not found" in BrE [4] (which might not mean truly zero, but below a "negligible" cutoff level). I wonder whether we should label it "chiefly US" ... or perhaps it's just me? Mihia (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I’ve certainly heard ‘lefty loosey, righty tighty’ and sometimes say it myself, so I wouldn’t label it as US. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:33, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, a Youglish search (for "righty tighty", to find either order) finds 8 people saying "righty tighty, lefty loosey" and only 1 saying "lefty loosey, righty tighty". A quick poll of English-speaking friends got me similar results, 1 "lefty..." and 6 "righty...". Youglish also has many instances of people saying only whichever half of the phrase was relevant to what they were doing (tightening vs loosening). So, I agree it was sensible to make "righty..." the lemma. - -sche (discuss) 02:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Hey, nice work — that's a fair shake at objective evidence, certainly better than the lack of any. A solid basis for choosing the right-hand-first polarity for Wiktionary's entries. Perhaps the bias against lefties is sinister, but there you go, it's also ancient, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 07:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it is obviously an Americanism. I've never heard it in England. But does it definitely refer to the idea that you would tighten a tap (faucet) or nut/screw by turning it to the right, whereas turning it to the left would open it up/loosen it? What if the nut/screw/tap worked the other way? Or do they all work in that way? 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 13:28, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I've certainly heard it in England. I wouldn't object to the phrase being described as originally and chiefly American in the etymology, especially if an approximate date the term was first used is given, but actually labelling it as US would be absurd. It seems that bicycle spokes have, at least sometimes, an anticlockwise thread (according to one of our citations) and so could theoretically be described as 'righty loosey, lefty tighty' but a clockwise thread is certainly typical for screws. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:23, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding "Or do they all work in that way?" — although they don't all work that way, right-handed screw threads are the default that is used wherever an exception is not needed; Wikipedia gives an explanation of it (screw thread § Handedness). As for faucet taps, though, many are "backwards" for no other reason than aesthetics and mirrored symmetry. For example, a pair of bathroom or kitchen tap handles where you pull it toward yourself to open it, and push it away from yourself to close it, no matter whether it's the right or left one — to set it up that way, the chirality is not the same on both taps. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

q.v. and qq.v.

q.v. is listed as an English adverb. qq.v. is listed as an English noun. Surely they should be the same POS? (And I would think that that should be [imperative] verb….) 212.179.254.67 12:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• Possibly you could argue that this is adjectival, in the sense that it means something like "which you should look at for further information", i.e. non-restrictively modifying the noun? Mihia (talk) 20:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

gegagedigedagedago pronunciation

The second consonant is spelled g but given as /d/ in the IPA. A simple mistake? The audio sounds wrong too (at both ends). 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:2138:4E06:355:268E 15:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The IPA is right, the word is just spelled weirdly. -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 15:22, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide evidence? This seems absolutely exceptional. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:2138:4E06:355:268E 22:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the second consonant is just to pwn us and the last consonant is one that we would have thou(gh)t wouldn't be an /x/ reduced to nearly nothing? Lol, I'm just playing devil's advocate. If it hadn't been for Old Nick, English would've had phonemic orthography years ago, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Here. (external link to Youtube) -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 05:55, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

o'clock

1. (humorous) In conjunction with a term representing an action or event that occurs daily, indicates the time that said action or event occurs, first occurs.
   • 1880, Henrietta A. Duff, Honor Carmichael, page 251:

     That same evening at tea-time — (I am sorry to have to introduce you to another eating-scene, but the hours in English households are usually marked by repasts. It is a daily calendar of feasts — breakfast o’clock, dinner o’clock, &c., […] ).

   • 1904, George Augustus Sala, Edmund Hodgson Yates, Temple Bar, volume 129, page 144:

     “My sister requires your attendance at supper o’clock this evening — no excuse accepted.”

   • 1998, Carolyn Greene, Heavenly Husband, page 129:

     “It's lunch o’clock. Wanna go out to eat?”

2. (humorous, slang) Used to indicate that it is time to do a specific action, or time for a specific action to occur.

   We're here at Waffle House, and it's waffles o'clock!

   We're here at Waffle House, and it's time to eat waffles.

Before I merge them, does anyone particularly believe that we need two senses here? I would think that the second definition pretty much suffices. Mihia (talk) 19:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Doesn't seem to warrant differentiation. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• Merged. Mihia (talk) 11:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

at

13. Indicates a means or method.

• 1995, Richard Klein, Cigarettes are Sublime, →ISBN, page 41:

  […] to be sold at auction for sixty gold francs.

Having added various missing senses, and generally reorganised some stuff, I am left with this Cinderella item. The sole example seems quite doubtful to me. If it was "by auction", yes, sure, but I see "at auction" really as referring to the place or event (which are other senses), not clearly the means. I think it is flimsy to keep this definition solely on this basis. Can anyone come up with some more examples to beef it up? Mihia (talk) 21:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I know what you mean but I also know what the def writer meant, because [thing X] is to be sold at auction feels like a special case: it is idiomatically how one normally says "X is to be sold via auction" or "X is to be sold by auction". In other words, to sell (X) at auction is idiomatically synonymous with to auction (X) off (absolutely independently of whether or not WT:SoP's quirkiness will allow the unit to be entered as a headword; I'm referring to a phenomenon rather than WT's handling of it). I tried to think of any other construction that is parallel but drew a blank; but that doesn't mean that the special case can't exist, and maybe also there's one more such oddball out there waiting to be recalled. Idiomaticness sometimes produces singularities (of the type that sometimes makes people say, "Did you realize that X is the only word in the English language [or "one of very few words in the English language"] that has Y trait or behaves in Z manner?!"). I also cannot prove the mental feel: (1) it is on a layer that is barely effable and (2) there is no guarantee that inter-speaker agreement exists for it; perhaps not everyone feels it. Which is why I wouldn't object to whatever edit you end up choosing to make. If you were to delete that sense and its ux, then Wiktionary would simply not cover that particular singularity; but that's OK, because, as one of Merriam-Webster's prefaces says, no dictionary can record everything that someone would like to know about a language. Dictionaries come as close as is practical. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

PS: to bury (someone) at sea feels like close but no cigar. But my brain is on the right track with it. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:59, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I suppose "How was it sold?" / "At auction" does not feel glaringly wrong (though "Where was it sold?" / At auction" is possible equally). I would put "buried at sea" into a similar category, and another one very similar to "at auction" that occurred to me is "at market". Perhaps three possibles -- auction, market and sea -- are enough to justify the sense, but ideally it would be good to have more solid and productive examples, rather than just isolated idiomatic phrases, which ultimately, or by derivation, appear to me to refer to place/event rather than method/means, albeit they have acquired some connotations of method/means. Mihia (talk) 15:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

unprovenienced

An English entry has just been added with the definition:

1. Alternative form of unprovenanced

Provenience isn't an alternative form of provenance, so I'm skeptical that adding a prefix changes that relationship. There seems to be a real, if subtle, difference between the two. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing here. I (adder) don't truly know the definition myself; I encountered the word in an academic writing discussing the ethics of studying "unprovenienced" artifacts and just assumed it was roughly the same as unprovenanced. Hftf (talk) 18:53, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

No, alt forms should share morphemes. {{syn of}} is likely better. Vininn126 (talk) 18:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

aged

Pronunciation

• (all senses) IPA^(key): /eɪdʒd/, enPR: ājd

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (alternative for adjective sense "old" and derived noun sense) IPA^(key): /ˈeɪ.dʒɪd/, enPR: āʹjĭd

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪdʒd, -eɪdʒɪd

I changed the two-syllable qualifier to be more specific as I can't imagine "He is ag-ed 18" or "ag-ed whiskey"; however I see also that the one-syllable pronunciation supposedly applies to all senses. This would mean e.g. "I knocked on the door and an aged man opened it" could be one syllable. I cannot easily visualise this, not in the usual sense of "old". Does anyone say it this way? Perhaps someone else could double-check these. Mihia (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Not my idiolect either. DCDuring (talk) 20:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

OK thanks, I'll change it now while I'm thinking about it, and if anyone else definitely disagrees then it can be revisited. Mihia (talk) 20:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I've encountered the one-syllable pronunciation used for all senses decently commonly. Searching Youglish for "an aged man", I find 12 examples (of any pronunciation, plus 1 video of sign language): the first sounds to me like eɪdʒd 0:12; at 1:32, this reading of a poem also sounds like one syllable, as does this, 3:32, and this, at 2:40. OTOH, this (11:09) has "an eɪ.dʒɪd man" with two syllables, as does 45:01, and 1:01:31 (same poem as the preceding); this, at 3:16, also has two syllables, as does this, 2:22. This (59:47) seems to be one syllable although the coda seems to kind of fade out. (This, at 2:51, is one syllable but I believe it's an AI voice.) The last example, at 38:37, is two syllables. I count 5 with one syllable, 6 with two syllables (not counting the AI audio, one unclear audio, and one video which was sign language). IMO this could either be handled by adding a {{q}} to the end of (all other senses) IPA(key): /eɪdʒd/, enPR: ājd like {{q|sometimes for all senses, including "old"}}, or by tweaking the pre-pronunciation {{q}} similarly, or just by changing it back to "all senses". - -sche (discuss) 22:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, "an aged man" could be one syllable even in my scheme if it was the other sense "having undergone the effects of time" (actually our definition says "Having undergone the improving effects of time", but I question whether it is always "improving"). Do you think that your examples definitely aren't of this nature? Mihia (talk) 22:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I frequently hear people read texts at church with words like "aged" in the two-syllable sense. Not long ago, I heard the same reading with the word "aged" read multiple times. Some pronounced it as one syllable and some as two. Interestingly, the age of the person didn't seem to make a difference. I suspect that the two-syllable pronunciation of "aged" is an "educated" pronunciation in many places, and since that sense of the word doesn't occur often in speech, many people have no idea that it's pronounced any differently than the more common senses. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

This is a little surprising to me. For all senses other than adjective "old" (and derived noun), the two-syllable version sounds so wrong to me that I possibly would not even understand what was being said: "He is ag-ed 18"; "She hasn't ag-ed well". For the "old" / "matured" sense, there is for me a clear difference in meaning, whereby "ag-ed man" just means an old man, while "ayjd man" means a person showing increased signs of the passing of time, such as grey hair; "ayjd whiskey" means "whiskey that has been allowed to mature", while "ag-ed whiskey" is a bit unusual but would just mean "old". I feel that we ought to document this as one scheme (perhaps BrE?), and as for the rest, well, I dunno. Are there other defined schemes, or is it just "pronounce it whatever way you fancy"? Or is it in fact only that the "old man" sense can be "ayjd" for some people, without the distinction that I mentioned, and everything else the same? Mihia (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

What I've done for now is label "ag-ed" as "used by some people for the adjective sense 'old' and derived noun sense" and "ayjd" as "all other uses". If anyone thinks we should divide this further then please go ahead. Mihia (talk) 11:49, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It was surprising to me as well when I first heard it. But I'm currently living in a more rural area where less educated forms of speech are common. I think it's just one of those words/senses that isn't part of everyday speech anymore (at least not where I live), so a lot of people who encounter it don't know the standard pronunciation. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Like Andrew, I suspect what's happening is that people who are unaware of the two-syllable pronunciation (one might call it a learnèd pronunciation) just use the same pronunciation as they use for the other senses. It's possible we could dismiss the one-syllable pronunciation (of this sense) as nonstandard.
Pure speculation: perhaps one factor is semantics: people may not perceive a crookèd politician as having any close relationship to the verb crook (can you crook a politician? not normally anymore AFAIK), so it remains a separate word and doesn't level out to the same pronunciation as the verb form; even parsing a learnèd man as a /lɜː(ɹ)nd/ man (one you learned about? no.) is a little awkward, providing impetus to keep it separate; but parsing an aged man as one who underwent aging does not seem to pose semantic problems. - -sche (discuss) 16:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

In the UK, we used to have a well-known charity called "Help the Aged". I was going to say that, as far as I have ever been aware, this is/was always "ag-ed", and in fact "Help the Ayjd" sounds slightly hilariously wrong to me -- wrong sense of the word. However, I have just found this interesting observation from someone on StackExchange:

"The British charity Help the Aged founded in 1961 was originally pronounced 'Help the Agèd' by most people but by the time it merged with Age Concern to form Age UK in 2008 many younger people were calling it 'Help the Aged' with an unstressed final syllable. Perhaps this is because the stressed final syllable is becoming less familiar. This is a shame because the difference between agèd (old person) and aged (matured alcoholic drink); learnèd and learned etcetera is immensely valuable."

Mihia (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

... I guess I didn't know any "younger people" even in 2008 ... Mihia (talk) 22:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Usage of loser

In the original meaning, the word loser means a person who loses the game, especially races. In the sense ‘a person who fails frequently or is generally unsuccessful in life’ is not used in formal emails or writing essays, should be used informally and used to show disapproval. MarcoToa 0425 (talk) 03:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Correct. I have added the labels "informal, derogatory". I would also probably put the following sense, "A contemptible or unfashionable person", as a subsense of this rather than a completely separate sense, but I have left it for now since I don't really understand "unfashionable". I would probably define it as "(by extension) A generally worthless or contemptible person". Perhaps other people could comment about this "unfashionable". Mihia (talk)

Actually, sorry, I undid that. I'm mixing up the senses, I think. Perhaps e.g. "I'm a constant loser in love" (one of the examples) is neither informal nor derogatory, while the other sense is both. I think I'll let someone else deal with this ... Mihia (talk) 09:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Bereshit

The definition for this English proper noun entry is

1. Anglicized transliteration of בְּרֵאשִׁית (b'reishít), the Hebrew word for the Genesis (literally, "In the beginning").

This doesn't seem like a very good definition. There's a tradition of referring to texts by their opening words, so it might be a name for the Book of Genesis, or it might be a name for the Biblical creation story that forms the first part of that book, or perhaps, by extension, the concept of divine creation introduced there.

The definition dates to the creation of the entry 2008 by @BD2412, and has only been changed to add formatting that didn't exist back then. I doubt the entry would be anything like this if created today. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I have no recollection of the research/thought process that I went through to determine the definition, but I remember that I made it because I heard a joke along the lines of "does a Bereshit in the woods?" bd2412 T 01:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

What about now, @Chuck Entz? Bereshit is not referring to the creation story, but to the first "book". Tollef Salemann (talk) 17:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@Tollef Salemann: it certainly fits the quotes in the entry, so definitely an improvement. There may be other definitions, though. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The Creation itself is Briye-Ha-Oylom (see בריאה). Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That is a transciption of the Yiddish term. Shifting from Hebrew to Yiddish unannounced may make any confusion worse. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

No it’s not quite so simple. Anyway, as far I understood, we don’t discuss Hebrew, but the English entry. My point was that the English transcription for the Hebrew term of creation is something else than Bereshit. Ain’t really important what the transcription is. Now we know that Bereshit may be used as a term for creation in some known Hebrew and Aramaic texts, but is it used in this sense in English? That’s the question. Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:46, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, the term Bereshit is from modern Hebrew. But if you search it in a context (its use in English text), you should obviously include the Ashkenazi forms (which you call Yiddish). Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Sije @Taokailam maybe you know better? Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I looked at Morfix website, https://www.morfix.co.il/en/%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%AA, the proper noun בראשית refers to the 1st book, Genesis only. Not to the creation story. Taokailam (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Bereshit may also refer to the creation, as in the Barukh she'amar prayer: בָּרוּךְ עוֹשֶׂה בְרֵאשִׁית. See entry in Jastrow, Marcus (1903) A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London, New York: Luzac & Co., G.P. Putnam's Sons, page 189. Sije (talk) 18:38, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Since it is Hebrew, I added this sense to the Hebrew entry (marking it as talmudic). For the English entry it is needed quotes in case if this word is used in this sense in English texts (about what I doubt). Tollef Salemann (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

off

8. Temporarily not attending a usual place, such as work or school, especially owing to illness or holiday.

John's off today. He's back on Wednesday.

1. (informal, predicative only) Unavailable; unable to stay in a band or come to a club due to being busy with activities or schedules.

The singer is off. He can't come today.

I added the first sense. The second sense was pre-existing and I made it a sub-sense. I feel slightly suspicious about the second sense, or unsure at any rate. Is there really such a specific and individual meaning for staying in a band or coming to a club? Or is it possibly just a very specific and slightly poorly defined example of the main sense? Can't find much in searches. Any ideas? Mihia (talk) 13:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm strongly suspicious, in this and many other cases, that someone young believes that any use of a term in a youth context is distinct from usage that has gone before. DCDuring (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Logically it is just an overspecific example of the main sense. I doubt that the reason for offness in the specific example is “due to being busy with activities or schedules” rather than illness. In either case the usual place can be the workplace and the place the off person went to may be a work trip, a business trip, busman's holiday. Fay Freak (talk) 00:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Sent to RFD. Mihia (talk) 09:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Microplane

Which meaning of the word plane is being used in our definition for microplane? Khemehekis (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

No doubt something derived from the "geometry" sense of the Etymology 1 noun, though in geometry planes technically don't have size, so they can't be microscopic or macroscopic. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:22, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it's the "A roughly flat, thin, often moveable structure..." sense. CitationsFreak (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

No, that sense is (trying to be) about the parts of aircraft and watercraft that generate their hydrodynamics (e.g., lift). The sense that mat sci is talking about is the planes, as in geometric planes, that exist for example inside crystals (such as face-centered cubes and so on). They are of course bounded (they have boundaries), but that doesn't disqualify their relationship to the notion of an infinite geometric plane: planar things can be planar even when they have boundaries; for example, the top face of a (noninfinite) cylinder mathematically is a planar surface even though it has bounds (bounded by the circle). Quercus solaris (talk) 21:05, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

pretend

There are some issues with this article, one being the lack of the main intransitive senses, which I intend to redress, but for starters we could look at the wording of sense 1:

1. (transitive) To claim, to allege, especially when falsely or as a form of deliberate deception [with clause]. [from 14th c.]

   You don't have to pretend that the soup tastes fine.

Anyone got any idea why it says "especially"? In modern usage isn't it always so? Could it be a hangover from an obsolete usage? Or am I missing something here? Mihia (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The online Middle English Dictionary has 6 senses and 2 subsenses for its first sense, 1a being "claim" (31 quotations), 1b being "feign", "falsely profess" (16 quotations). So, apparently, both the neutral sense and the "false" sense existed through that period, the latest quote being 1464. Century 1911 had as its definition 2 "To put forward as a statement or an assertion; especially, to allege or declare falsely or with intent to deceive.", very like ours.

Modern dictionaries seem to call some of the neutral senses archaic or obsolete. In my idiolect, falsity is always essential to a definition of current usage, though intent need not be malicious, as in acting or playing. DCDuring (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, thanks, how do you perceive this one?:

• (transitive) To feign, affect (a state, quality, etc.). [from 15th c.]

  She's pretending illness to get out of the business meeting.

To me, this example does not seem correct English (although of course it can be understood). Although apparently "from 15th c.", I'm thinking from the patterns in other dictionaries that it may be now chiefly US. How does it sound to you? Mihia (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't seem wrong to me, but I can't say that I've heard it in normal speech in the US or anywhere else. DCDuring (talk) 22:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Just overheard this and thought I'd butt in. The OED has this supported with a quote from 2003 to a British newspaper:

• There is an obvious tackiness about a multi-millionaire from the richest country in the world, pretending poverty.

I'm not familiar with it myself (NZ), and I'd assume it was formal, but I wouldn't venture a label without further evidence. Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• with a quote from 2003 in a British newspaper -- or something like that

Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:19, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

In fact, now I look more carefully, there is also a quote from a British newspaper in our article: "they cannot pretend ignorance". I must say that this one does sound a little more natural to me, though I don't know why. Another example in our article, "boys who had pretended soldiers", sounds so wrong and odd to me that it is hard to even understand, and I would naturally assume that it was a typo or some kind of editing error. But anyway, since I'm not sure, I'll leave that def alone as far as labelling is concerned. Mihia (talk) 12:43, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

In fact, it's not clear that the "pretended soldiers" example even fits the definition "To feign, affect (a state, quality, etc.)". I can find no other analogous examples, apart from our quote, either for soldiers or for doctors, nurses, policemen, anything. I wonder whether actually it is just a typo or editing error, or an author's personal oddity. Does this "pretended soldiers" sentence read like normal correct English to anyone? Mihia (talk) 17:32, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it's not idiomatic in my variety (gen AmE). Not confusing at all, just not idiomatic. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, unidiomatic to me too (NZ). Soldiers is weird also because it's unidiomatic for the gloss too: To feign soldiers. The usage note could say something like: transitive usually a state, condition, etc.: to pretend sickness. -- You could make it sound prettier than that maybe. Cameron.coombe (talk) 10:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I've deleted that strange example. Mihia (talk) 12:11, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

"hyphenated compound"

I went to create this entry and it was deleted three years ago. It just says deleted per RFD but doesn't link to the exact discussion. I don't know why this entry would be deleted when we have "closed compound" and "open compound" in the dictionary. It's not as common as those two, but I'd easily fill up the quotes for attestation. Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:hyphenated_compound. The argument was "SOP" (sum of parts), i.e. if one knows what hyphenated and compound mean, one can work out what they mean together. It is harder with "open" and "closed" because they have so many different meanings. "Hyphenated" has only one. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:F9AC:CC62:6541:2A8E 04:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

㽥

It seems silly that we have a "Translingual" section listing two definitions that were used in particular time periods and places in China, and then a "Chinese" section with an rfdef. Can we move the definitions to the Chinese section...? - -sche (discuss) 08:06, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

yes, i agree. it should be dublicated in the chinese section. also glyph's history and stroke order stuff would improve the article, too Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:08, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Nowel

Sense 1 of Nowel (interjection) reads: "An gleeful exclamation upon hearing Jesus being born in representations of the event." Is "in representations of the event" not too vague or formal? Another complication is that the linked Middle English dictionary does not only speak of e.g. carrols about the Nativity, but the Annunciation as well. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

taco /teɪkoʊ/

Can anyone confirm or deny the claim by this IP that taco was historically pronounced with //eɪ// in the US, UK, AUS and NZ? A quick search finds me only one modern mention of an "uneducated and unsophisticated" person pronouncing it that way (in Mark Rutland's Keep On Keeping On). - -sche (discuss) 18:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Sounds fishier than a fish taco to me lol; sounds like someone changing wiki to settle a bet, prove themselves "right" for another to see, or just perpetrate a good old fashioned wiki hoax. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't shock me if it was real, but in less-than-educated-on-Hispanic-culture eras. Maybe try old broadcasts on Mexican food, or some poem on Mexican food from the 1970s that's not written by someone familiar with the food? CitationsFreak (talk) 00:30, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

You make a good point in the respect that it could easily have been familectal via spelling pronunciation in American locales where pizzas and tacos were considered "ethnic" and borderline-exotic back then. But even under those conditions, though, it was not a widespread norm. Perhaps the IP was someone who grew up in a household that said /teɪkoʊ/ and just always assumed that "everyone" said it that way back then. But (if so), to the IP I would say, it's the sort of thing that gets an "oh, honey, you didn't know?" when people gently correct spelling pronunciations. Which is why I'm not surprised that MW and AHD don't show it as a variant. I've been, and been surrounded by, AmE speaker(s) for cough-cough decades, and I'm certain that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in my region who would recognize it as anything other than an "oh, honey" outlier/familectal/idiolectal (or a "what're you, jokin?", if they're not being polite to the speaker). Quercus solaris (talk) 04:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

There is evidence that the spelling pron was widespread at the time. See this excerpt from an Oct. 1949 article in American Speech entitled "Gringoisms in Arizona": "[T]he [tourists] [...] bravely attempt to order their meals in Spanish [and order such dishes as] tækoz, a mispronunciation of the Spanish word tacos." CitationsFreak (talk) 05:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

That just represents a pronunciation where the first syllable is identical to the standard English word tack rather than take though, I doubt many people say ‘taycoh’. The Canadian audio sample is odd at taco too, it doesn’t match the description as it sounds too American (‘tahcoh’). Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Millennial from NZ, it's always been taco as in /ˈtʰɑ:koʊ/ for me. Also pasta vs. pasta (UK), dance vs. dance (Aus), NZE today generally prefers /ɑ:/.

This is standard here, about 20 secs in

I don't imagine contemporary Aus be much different; can't speak to UK Cameron.coombe (talk) 10:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Always for me. Could well be older people who /eɪ/ it

Cameron.coombe (talk) 10:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, the pron said "historical" in the first place, meaning that it isn't used now, but was in the past. Probably the wrong label, though. CitationsFreak (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@CitationsFreak Ah, yeah sounds like (dated) to me Cameron.coombe (talk) 00:26, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The label "historical" suggested to me that it was (being claimed to be) a formerly accepted pronunciation (and also that it was no longer found). The IP's edit also suggested the same (diaphonemic) pronunciation was found in, and then ceased to be used it, all regions of the anglosphere. As far as I can tell, the only evidence we have is that it was instead an occasional nonstandard pronunciation in a few regions within living memory, so something like "nonstandard, uncommon" seems like a better label for that...? - -sche (discuss) 06:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I definitely think that (historical) is wrong, as it's used of things that we still mention today but no longer exist themselves, like the Roman Empire. It seems like a category error putting it in pronunciation. The label (nonstandard, uncommon) also works. You could (dated, uncommon) to indicate that it's both uncommon now (dated) and was uncommon at the time (uncommon). Cameron.coombe (talk) 07:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

seated (slang)

With all these slang words like cooked going around, it seems weird that seated (“ready, hyped”) isn't included here. I'm not the best at writing English glossaries though, so just flagging it for anyone who's able to do it better, preferably with quotations. Related: sat. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083 I would happily add it. If you post some links to examples here, that'd be helpful. I'm not familiar with the term myself. No need to format them correctly or anything. Cameron.coombe (talk) 07:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Belarusian words for tea

Hello,

The articles for the two Belarusian synonyms for "tea", гарбата and чай, both state that the other synonym is "more common". Which of the two (if either) is actually more common and which is less common? 170.213.22.139 19:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

must be some mistake Slowcuber7 (talk) 10:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I've changed it to "more or less common" in both entries so that all scenarios are covered. PUC – 14:25, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Goddamnit PUC. Vininn126 (talk) 14:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

thank you! Slowcuber7 (talk) 14:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

No, that's not a solution. Vininn126 (talk) 14:57, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

we need some sources. to me, intuition hints "чай" form would be more in common use Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:00, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

puc, your edits were reverted Slowcuber7 (talk) 14:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Slowcuber7 He wrote literally "more or less common" on both entries, which does not inform us of anything. He did it to troll. Vininn126 (talk) 15:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

crap.. anyways Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

oranye

having one of the longest etymology chains it should definitely be supplied with an etymon tree. Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

twoth

I found this entry from the WP article on 2... it seems to me that "twoth" is mostly likely to be whimsy (which is not strictly a dialect). But there is a reference for dialectal use in Devon so ok. But I removed this example: "The computation of êk*xk-j is reduced to a controlled twoth complementer at the expense of a reduced adaptation speed." because it is almost certainly a confusion with "twos complement", perhaps just a non-native error. Then there are examples of "one hundred and twoth" and "twenty twoth", in which the meaning is not "second", but rather a disconnected ("units digit is 2" + "ordinal marker"). Particularly for numbers like 10000000000001, both expressions, "ten trillion and first" and "ten trillion and oneth" seem dubious, and can only produced by conscious rule following. Should they remain? Imaginatorium (talk) 08:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

It seemed appropriate to me to augment the label "dialectal" to become "dialectal|or|whimsical". I did that. I didn't yet ponder the deeper ramifications regarding the lexicography of overregularizations in general. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

drive it down, drive something down

These have been created today as "alternative forms" of drive down. I don't think inserting an object is an alternative form. We don't generally create pages like pick something up. This practice could create a huge number of pages of almost no value. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:E4F5:C417:56AC:AEAD 22:47, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Quite right. And the question of whether "someone" and "something" could perhaps be removed from certain phrasal headwords is not the same question as this. This one is like the broader and dumber general case of that, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Also agreed. Not alternative forms. Can be deleted. Mihia (talk) 23:48, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

value (2)

Verb senses:

1. To estimate the value of; judge the worth of.

   I will have the family jewels valued by a professional.

2. To fix or determine the value of; assign a value to, as of jewelry or art work.

Can anyone see what the difference between these two senses is supposed to be? Mihia (talk) 23:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

You are right to point out the flimsiness of the differentiation as it is currently presented. At the very least, if the two defs were to remain unmerged, they would need better usexes to highlight the differentiation. But even then it is flimsy. There does exist a potentially worthwhile differentiability regarding being the one who assigns a value for legal purposes versus any other kind of nonbinding estimate. But if Wiktionary were to have separate senseids for that, it would need to support that approach with refinements to the lb, def, and ux elements. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, what I actually meant to ask is not so much "what the difference is supposed to be", which is evidently that one refers to "estimate" and the other "fix or determine", but more whether there is sufficient difference to warrant two separate senses. To me it seems hair-splitting and they could be combined. Mihia (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, because even the fine gradation could be handled inside of one senseid with the right finessing (perhaps something to the effect of "estimate blah; fix or assign blah"). Quercus solaris (talk) 00:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that's an RFV question, TBH. I find that these sorts of distinctions are often very real, but hard to identify without seeing how they are used. I would also look at sources like the OED and see if they have distinct senses. I don't think the senses are sufficiently similar that they can just be merged without some further legwork. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:48, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how RFV will help. We already know that it can mean "estimate", "fix" or "determine" (though in practice I would think usually estimate, since true value is usually not known until a sale). The question is whether making separate senses for these is helpful or (as I believe) hair-splittingly confusing. Mihia (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the two senses are/were trying to draw a distinction between:

• I will have the family jewels valued by a professional. (the usex for the first sense)

which might be rephrased as

• A professional valued the jewels. (estimated their worth, no price specified)

vs e.g.

• The jewels were valued at 14 million pounds. →
• A professional valued the jewels at 14 million pounds. (fixed their worth at a specific price, specified)

I am not sure whether we need separate senses for that. We seem to handle the corresponding distinction at sell with one sense (that covers both "the professional sold jewels"-type and "the professional sold jewels for 14 million pounds"-type uses). Neither Merriam-Webster nor Dictionary.com distinguishes these AFAICT; each has one definition covering both together. OTOH, the 1933 OED does separate "I. 1. trans. To estimate or appraise as being worth a specified sum or amount. Const. at, †to, or with inf." with cites like "valued [to/at] [PRICE]", vs "2. To estimate the value of (goods, property, etc.); to appraise in respect of value." with cites like "To value what the grasse of the gardens ... be worth by the yere", "the presents had not yet been valu'd [...] which could not be valu'd but by them", "Wood...which has not been valued, but put at least 25 Rixdollars", "I propose to have those rights of the crown valued as manerial rights are valued on an inclosure", "Weigh with her thy self; Then value." and "b. To rate for purposes of taxation. Obs." with the cite "All the woorlde shulde be valued". - -sche (discuss) 07:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I think it is a mistake to lump into one definition intransitive, ditransitive, and intransitive usage of common verbs like sell. For one thing, ditransitive is mostly a linguist's term.

I like the OED treatment of value. We often, but unsystematically neglect to note common complements entirely and for other verbs we make up "phrasal verbs", eg, value at, effectively burying the phenomenon, at least for encoding. DCDuring (talk) 16:19, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

As far as "at" is concerned, this is not the only possibility, and these patterns can be handled with examples, and in fact I have already added an example with "at". To make a different actual sense of "value" for e.g. "I will have the family jewels valued by a professional" versus "He valued the family jewels at $1m" seems bogus to me. To me, it is the identical meaning of the actual word "value"; the only difference comes from the other words in the sentence. On the subject of transitivity, it did occur to me earlier actually that there is an intransitive sense, just about, e.g. "the auctioneer is valuing all day today". I decided in the end it was just too fussy to split this out, so I didn't bother, but if someone else wants to, go ahead ... Mihia (talk) 18:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

the sea is clustered with islands, transitively

We're currently giving The sea is clustered with islands. as an example of the use of cluster as a transitive verb (with object). Is this correct? - -sche (discuss) 16:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe that it is linguistically correct even though the reason the construction is a short passive is that, depending on one's cosmology, no agent exists. This accords with Pullum 2024:108 at "The universe was created 13.8 billion years ago. ([possible by-phrase NP =] unknown cosmic forces? God?)." In the same class will be a sky studded with stars. (And I think stud (v) needs some refinement when some one of us Wiktionarians gets around to it.) At the moment I believe that this phenomenon is explained by the concept that English and many other natural languages are built and wired such that the teleology of supernaturalism, with either implied divine agency or an implied dummy holding its place, underpins the grammar even though nonreligious people can speak the language just as easily as religious ones by holding that teleology to be merely grammatically obligate through solely figurative idiomaticness. Sadly my linguistics authority ends at the tip of my armchair, but like every speaker of a natural language, I'm allowed to operate the machine using my best understanding to date of how it works under the hood. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

My knowledge of grammar is also rather limited, but I was previously informed that the construction "[object] + form of to be + [verb]" indicates that the verb is used in a transitive sense. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Generally yes (though I would call it the (passive) subject, rather than object), but some past participles have a life of their own as adjectives; e.g. "I'm interested in this". One test might be to check whether "The sea is very clustered with islands" works. Mihia (talk) 18:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, "has been clustered" sounds strange. Chuck Entz (talk)

We should test for adjectivity. -ed (~"having") is productive of denominal adjectives. This one might be pushing it, but it seems possible to me. DCDuring (talk) 19:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I can find some usage like very|too clustered ("having clusters"). Also uses like clustered with sequins|lights. DCDuring (talk) 20:28, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, a good example of an "-ed" adjective that does not have an associated verb is talented. Mihia (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The semantics is important: "having [NOUN]". I don't think it necessarily matters whether the noun is a homonym of a verb. DCDuring (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

My purpose in giving that example was merely to reinforce the point that "be-verb + -ed word" does not always imply transitive verb. Mihia (talk) 21:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

OK. I tried to find usage of becluster without luck in a cursory search. DCDuring (talk) 21:31, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I could only find the one [here] Leasnam (talk) 00:21, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

value (3)

2. To regard highly; think much of; place importance upon.

Gold was valued highly among the Romans.

I value his advice.

3. To hold dear.

I value these old photographs.

Are these senses definitely distinct, or are they really the same thing just with different subject matter? What do you think? Mihia (talk) 21:05, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

They seem the same to me, but hold dear doesn't seem to be considered a synonym of esteem, value. I think I read dear as "expensive" (BS in economics) not "cherished". DCDuring (talk) 21:29, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I do read "hold dear" as meaning something like "cherish", just a question of whether it is different in kind from the first one, or whether we might as well add e.g. "cherish" to the first definition line. (I suppose "cherish" is a bit more strongly emotional ... Hm.) Mihia (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

No. Exactly. The subject making the value judgement can have different reasons as reference points by which the action is made. The difference from sense 1 is that in sense 1 an objectified value within a community is expressed, which does not exclude an example like “valued highly among the Romans” belonging to the second sense, given that a community can have varied subjective references. It is too much of a distinction though to objectify subjective importance and affective interest, as this distinction between sense 2 and 3 does. Fay Freak (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

астрономически (Bulgarian)

Does астрономически mean also 'sidereal' as its listed as a translation there? The word really looks like it should mean only 'astronomical'... Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 18:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

oxymoron

Does anyone know who "proscribes" using oxymoron in its main sense, i.e. "a contradiction in terms". Also, why does the usage note call that a "vernacular" sense? Wikiuser815 (talk) 19:18, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

No one. There is no context where it needs to be avoided for the stated reason. A paradox is an oxymoron with a point. This is how I learned learned usage in the 2000s from the philosophers and philologists. It is notable that the present usage notes is based on text from January 2003, when everyone was dumber. Fay Freak (talk) 21:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Some would say that expressions like Amtrak schedule, jumbo shrimp, and military intelligence are oxymoronic, being "contradictions in terms". I find all of these puerile. Mostly they are merely uses of polysemic terms, sometimes needing snarkiness to be heard as contradictions. They don't merit being characterized as contradictions in terms, nor are they intended to be rhetorical figures. Could this be the kind of thing that is "proscribed"? DCDuring (talk) 18:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

No doubt DCDuring is on the right track concerning what the label writer was probably getting at, although in my view the label is not quite right. GMEU5 s.v. "Oxymorons" mentions that "Among language aficionados, collecting and inventing cynical oxymorons is a parlor game; they enjoy phrases that seem to imply contradictions, such as military intelligence, legal brief, and greater Cleveland (this last being quite unfair to a great city)." Garner does not belittle the aficionados for playing the game, but it is clear in toto from his entry that the point is to refrain from overdoing it. Garner says, "Writers sometimes use oxymorons to good effect [examples given] […] The main thing to avoid is seemingly unconscious incongruity [examples given] […] ." The thing that usage connoisseurs proscribe is being the pedant who takes the hypercynical hyperbole (the hyperbolic hypercynicism) too far, claiming that just about anything in life is oxymoronic (e.g., smart progressives, smart conservatives, enjoyable theme parks, healthy fast food). I don't think the lb element can address this layer, whereas it would have to be a usage note instead, but it's OK if Wiktionary forgoes handling it at all, as many people are touchy about Wiktionary having comprehensive scope for its usage notes. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:04, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

We already have a usage note on that. CitationsFreak (talk) 06:34, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

great minds think alike

1. Used to emphasize a coincidence, or two people reaching the same conclusion in any manner at the same time.

I don't really understand the "or" in this. Does this definition, as it is literally written, make sense to anyone, or is it just misworded? Mihia (talk) 18:05, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I read it as "used to emphasize a coincidence, or [to emphasize] two people reaching …". I don't particularly like the wording. PUC – 20:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that's how it can be interpreted, but then it seems to imply that "great minds think alike" can be used to emphasise a coincidence generally, and not necessarily one specifically of the nature mentioned in the second part. Is this actually true? I can't visualise what kind of context this would be referring to. Mihia (talk) 21:06, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it works for coincidences in general, not does it mark as a mere coincidence two (or more) people having the same idea. The few other dictionaries that cover this don't mention coincidence. Cambridge Advanced Learner's labels it as humorous. DCDuring (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I think the writing was just hasty and inoptimal, and a better ng value would be, "Used when two people reach the same conclusion at the same time, whether by coincidence or in any other manner." Quercus solaris (talk) 15:51, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

amenities

Is it a plural only? If yes, is the definition ("The quality of being pleasant or agreeable") correct? PUC – 20:34, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

The definition in the singular entry (“A thing or circumstance that is welcome and makes life a little easier or more pleasant.”) is better. Fay Freak (talk) 21:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that our examples are intended in the sense "social courtesies", or "pleasantries", which AHD does list as plural, implying plural only. However, our definition doesn't exactly say that. Also, there are a couple of GBS hits for "exchanged an amenity", apparently in the same sense, so it seems it isn't plural only, not in that sense. Whether there is another plural sense meaning what our definition actually says, I know not. Mihia (talk) 21:37, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

(after e/c) Great minds think alike. The singular entry doesn't, but should, also have the purportedly "plural-only" definition, which Century 1911 has. I would want to label that definition archaic or even obsolete. The citations at amenities don't really fit the definition there. One could plausibly substitute pleasantries in the citations. I would look for more citations of any "plural-only" usage or see what OED has to say. DCDuring (talk) 21:47, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

صوفي

I was checking sufi and I bumped into this word. There is a link "See also: ضوقى" but the word ḍūqā seems to have no connection with sufi. Furthermore, ضوقى ḍūqā links to صوفي and صوفی (both sufi). Is it correct? Carnby (talk) 21:12, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Carnby: {{also}} links are outwith language sections and hence without respect to sense. They contain graphic similarities and equivalences; in this case, what looks identical in rasm. Fay Freak (talk) 21:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@Fay Freak I understand. Thank you. Carnby (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

proto turkic kipchak is disorganized

Here, Kyrgyz is in east kipchak https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Turkic/b%C3%BCt-

Here, Kygryz is part of a sub category of south kipchak https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Turkic/k%C3%BCn

Here, it says Kipchak-Cuman instead of West Kipchak like on the other entries https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Turkic/s%C7%96t

Can we just use the classification on here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kipchak_languages#Classification instead of the directional north/west stuff Zbutie3.14 (talk) 18:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

μυστικός

I was reading Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy (Italian edition) and I found this etymology for μυστικός: «μυστήριον (mysterium), μύστης, μυστικός stem from the same root, cfr. Sanskrit muś, meaning 'be kept secret'.» It seems different from the etymology given here, from μύω (PIE *mewH-ye-, 'to shut'). Who is right?-- Carnby (talk) 20:02, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Beekes refers for μυστήριον to μύω. Unlike Otto, he was an expert on comparative Indo-European linguistics. He offers Indo-European *meus-, *meuH- “shut” as a tentative etymon. I assume the latter is a variant notation for our *mewH-. It is possible there is a Sanskrit term stemming from the same PIE root, but all I can find is a verb मुष् (muṣ) meaning “to steal, rob, plunder, carry off, ravish, captivate”, from PIE *mewsH- (“to pick up, take away”). BTW, the best place for cogitating on etymology issues is at our Etymology scriptorium.  --Lambiam 23:16, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

there

Parts of speech of "there" can be tricky. For example:

The air there is beneficial to health.

It could be seen as "Where is this air located?" / "There", i.e. adverbial, or "Which air do you mean?" / "The air that is there", i.e. adjectival. My feeling is to go with adverbial, and in fact I question whether there are any truly adjectival senses of "there" (or, for that matter, "here"), but does anyone else have a view? Mihia (talk) 22:01, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I abstain from having a nonprovisional opinion until I've had time to linger over CamGEL lexical index entry "there (locative)" and the circa fourteen locations that it points to, lol. The one at 612-615 is interesting upon first skim and makes me want to pore over it plus the thirteen others. My eyes are bigger than my stomach: my to-do list outstrips the clock and the calendar. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

One can say, Go to the Swiss Alps. The air there will be beneficial to your health. Or one can just say, The air in the Swiss Alps will be beneficial to your health. The grammatical role of there in the first version is the same as that of in the Swiss Alps in the second version.  --Lambiam 23:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes of course, "there" means "in that place", but how does this help? Prepositional phrases such as "in the Swiss Alps" can be either adjectival or adverbial. "The air in the Swiss Alps will be beneficial to your health" could mean "In the Swiss Alps the air will be beneficial to your health" or it could mean "The Swiss alpine air will be beneficial to your health". Mihia (talk) 18:01, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Is Swedish pölse a transliteration of Danish pølse? Or just an (unadapted) borrowing?

I was revisiting an old entry I made. The Swedish word pölse has two definitions; 1. a red Vienna sausage, associated with Danish stereotype, 2. an old dialectal word for pork sausage inherited from Danish. The Danish definition for pølse is 1. a sausage. The Danish heritage is unmistakable.

The only difference between the words is the letter ö and ø. Swedish and Danish concider these to be the same letter, just with different typography.

So, should I categorise pölse as a Transliteration {translit|sv|da} in the Etymology section (instead of {bor|sv|da})? Or is transliteration mostly reserved for proper nouns like names? Christoffre (talk) 11:11, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what our policy is, but I'd find it very strange to label this "transliteration". I think it's simply a borrowing. Whether the change from "ø" to "ö" makes it an adapted borrowing or not, is another question. Strictly speaking it does. (But this is another distinction that I personally find rather pointless.) 92.73.31.113 22:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Not be so sure about dialectal one. See on it in SAOB, it looks like a variant of pölsa/pylsa, also attested in Norwegian. This y-sound is not quite Danish. I am very confused about Icelandic pylsa and Norwegian pæsj (which we use in my village, where ø tends to shift to æ, but y never does it). Where the Danish word came from is also quite foggy. So this may be borrowing in Swedish just for some occasions, but not always. Tollef Salemann (talk) 23:47, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

The weird plural form pölser indicates it as a Danish borrowing. Tollef Salemann (talk) 00:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

It is an unadapted borrowing because it still follows Swedish conjugation, but having weird e-ending. Transliteration for usual nouns is more like valenki, which does not even follow the conjugation rules. Tollef Salemann (talk) 00:27, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok, then I'll keep it as is. Christoffre (talk) 17:48, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

If you do not mind, I change it to unadapted borrowing, like the Swedish souvenir is. Am just not sure about the dialectal one, because ending -er in plural instead of -or is not necessary Danish influenced (see some dialects in Skåne and Göteborg area), and the word itself is not necessary Danish, but together with ending -e in singular it looks very Danish. Tollef Salemann (talk) 17:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Japanese 新幹線 - しんかんせん

The IPA on the page is [ɕĩŋkã̠ɰ̃sẽ̞ɴ]. I'm wondering why the second ん is pronounced ɰ̃, since the pronunciation guide for ん says that it should be /n/ before s. Duchuyfootball (talk) 03:31, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

The guide also says " [ɰ̃] before approximants [...] and fricatives". It should probably be edited to remove "s" from the list after [n]; the Japanese version of the page doesn't include it.--Urszag (talk) 03:38, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Looks like [s] was added in this revision by @Eirikr: could you clarify?--Urszag (talk) 03:43, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

What I hear in YouTube video's like this one sounds to me more like [ɴ] than like [ɰ̃].  --Lambiam 23:28, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the speaker in the video is somewhere in China and not from Japanese. Duchuyfootball (talk) 05:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

It turns out to be a Taiwanese channel.  --Lambiam 16:18, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Not only is the speaker "from Taiwan", they are speaking Chinese, not Japanese, so their pronunciation is irrelevant. Imaginatorium (talk) 17:33, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Regional distribution of sterretje, flikkerster, sterrenflikker (Dutch)

A quick web search suggests that there is a distinct geographical distribution to the use of these words for a sparkler (firework). Sterretje is the default term in the Netherlands, and would be the predominant term in the west of the country (and possibly elsewhere also); flikkerster gives more Belgian results, and Limburg (in both countries) may be a place where this term is more commonly attested; sterrenflikker is the rarer term and seems to be used quite often in the eastern Netherlands. @Mnemosientje, Lambiam, Thadh, Appolodorus1, Morgengave, Alexis Jazz ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:58, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with firework terminology, but I think sterretje is indeed more common here. Thadh (talk) 11:54, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Where is “here”?  --Lambiam 23:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Lingo Bingo Dingo, in the west half of w:North Brabant I've only ever heard sterretjes (plural) IIRC. Never heard of the other two terms. — Alexis Jazz (talk) 01:10, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

lubricate

I have no personal issue with this, but currently the sentence provided as an example for the usage of the word lubricate is The prostitute lubricated her ass before getting ass-fucked. which seems a rather narrow aperture through which to view all the possible meanings of the word... 2001:8003:B40A:ED00:540C:6B0F:92DD:F5BB 05:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done— Alexis Jazz (talk) 01:24, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

sanguisuga

Italian. IPA^(key): /san.ɡwiˈzu.ɡa/ added by @Diddy-sama6 in Special:Diff/66064632 as alternative to IPA^(key): /san.ɡwiˈsu.ɡa/.

I have personally never heard this pronunciation. Emanuele6 (talk) 09:00, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@Diddy-sama6 comment? Emanuele6 (talk) 15:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

patch program

patch program is a hard redirect to patch. Isn’t that highly irregular? I think that patch program is SOP, meaning a program for patching in the sense of applying (software) patches. In no way is it a synonym of patch – and even if it was, I don’t think it should be a redirect.  --Lambiam 22:15, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

As a general rule, I dislike redirects altogether (although I am guilty of creating them). If we have an entry at all, we should be able to define it, even if only as a synonym or alternative form of something else. (Sometimes, I admit, it can be hard to define fragments, or tedious to individually define many minor variants, versions with different pronouns, etc.) But particularly, I dislike redirects (also at Wikipedia) where you are thrown into a different article and there is no mention anywhere of the non-obvious relationship or connection with what you searched for. This is a case in point. Mihia (talk) 20:35, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, our relevant definition of "patch" -- "A piece of source code for overwriting part of a computer program in order to correct an error" -- seems questionable. Isn't the "patch" itself actually executable code rather than source code? Also, "for overwriting" is poorly phrased. Whether "patch" can also be the program that applies the patch, if you get my drift, I'm not sure. Mihia (talk) 20:41, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

WT:REDIR states, “In Wiktionary, redirects are used only for a restricted set of purposes and are avoided otherwise.” This case appears not to be covered by any of these purposes. We do not seem to have an established process for requesting the deletion of inappropriate redirects.

I agree on “executable“ and think “replace” is better than “overwrite”. A program for applying patches might be given the name patch, after the imperative form of the verb, but AFAIK this is not used as a common noun for this sense.  --Lambiam 22:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

How to handle not- as a narratology prefix?

Hey. I was wondering what would be the best way to handle the prefix not- in its narratology use to indicate a stand-in for a real person, country, entity, etc. in a fictional work or conworld? As in: "In The Iron Dream, Trueman returns from the outlands of not-Germany, where his family was exiled by the not–Treaty of Versailles with the surrounding not-Allies . . ."? Should it be at not-, using the hyphen convention for prefixes? Should it simply be at not, and if so, what should the part of speech be? Or should we opt for Appendix:Snowclones/not-X? Khemehekis (talk) 11:32, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

by Toutatis

w:4179 Toutatis says /taʊˈteɪtɪs/. Numberguy6 (talk) 17:48, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

But I would give this a French-sounding pronunciation because it comes from Asterix. Novel username (talk) 18:47, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

palmares

This is a (mostly) cycling term borrowed from French that is used in English as either singular or plural. English Wiktionary says that the French word palmarès is uncountable, which slightly surprises me, but then again at https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/palmar%C3%A8s it says "invariable", which I gather means that it does not inflect for number -- but does this mean that it is uncountable, or is it actually countable but just that the singular and plural forms are the same? If the latter, it wouldn't be unreasonable for this to be transferred to English, which may partly explain English usage, though perhaps not entirely, since, as far as I can make out, "his palmares is/are" are used interchangeably. Anyway, do we have anyone whose French is a little better than my schoolboy level who can explain the French usage? Mihia (talk) 19:38, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

The French word is indeed countable, I've fixed our entry. PUC – 20:33, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Are you (or anyone) able to tell whether correct French usage would allow "His palmares are X, Y and Z", where X, Y and Z are his achievements, or is the plural only properly used for multiple lists, as in e.g. "Their palmares are ..."? Mihia (talk) 20:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia: 2) PUC – 18:28, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I assume that by "2" you mean the second of my alternatives is correct? Mihia (talk) 20:59, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

all in a day's work

The definition seems off. Is this really an interjection? In any case, it has non-interjectional uses. Doesn't it mean something like "nothing out of the ordinary"? PUC – 20:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

I improved the entry so as to handle the aspects that you rightfully pointed out. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:02, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

archzological

Hey, I found what I think is a great example for WT:TYPO, but within the OCR context- "archzological". See archzological at the Google Books Ngram Viewer. It's actually archæological, but OCR calls it "archzological" 26,000 times in the Internet Archive- [5]. But this error doesn't squarely fit within WT:TYPO, which reads "Typos are words whose spelling comes about by an accident of typing or type-setting." There was no typing error per se, but yet I feel the policy clearly applies. I don't know if Wiktionary should extend the policy around OCR, or if the policy as written is good enough. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:18, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I support this idea. WT:TYPO's description could be tweaked to include OCR errors, and the name need not change, as it's OK for typos to be the nominal handle for the guidance. Alternatively, WT:CFI (of which WT:TYPO is a section) could have a new section called WT:OCR, dedicated to OCR errors specifically, and WT:TYPO and WT:OCR could cross-reference each other (see also). Quercus solaris (talk) 00:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

If nobody's used that spelling of the word, and it only exists in (badly-)scanned texts [1], I say it shouldn't be part of our dictionary. It just feels off to me, having words that no one's used.

[1] If three poor shmucks copy-pasted the OCR'd text into an ebook without checking anything, and it had the spelling, then there would be slightly more legitimacy. CitationsFreak (talk) 01:56, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, no, by "support this idea" I meant that Wiktionary should not enter OCR errors, just like it should not enter typos, and that WT:CFI should be augmented by mentioning that fact. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Quercus. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I see that WT:CFI is locked with a level of lock that keeps me out. Someone with the power to edit it should mention there, "don't add OCR errors to Wiktionary", and should give a good example, either *archzological for archæological or some other representative one. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:02, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

AFAICT, OCR errors (which don't exist in texts themselves) are already excluded by the requirement that, to be included, words must occur, either being "used" (as is required for English) or at least in "use or mention" in e.g. reference works (as for some small or extinct languages). I'm not opposed to spelling this out more explicitly, but... then do we need to spell out that faulty memories are also not included, e.g. if you misremember a book using the word foobaritical but it in fact does not? Perhaps I am misunderstanding what is being discussed. If later editors have printed editions of a text that actually contain a new word based on misreading the word that older editions have, ... well, that seems like something to handle case by case: it might be a windsucker or ye olde situation where the new word takes on life, no? - -sche (discuss) 21:24, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree on all those points. I think it's worth stating explicitly that OCR errors are artifacts and artifacts aren't a kind of attestation. I don't think expressing it would also require mentioning faulty memories though. I agree that any word form that takes on a life of its own as a lexeme in its own right is a different story, such as ye olde and other assorted covfefe. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:15, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

User:Zff19930930's Yola entries (and specifically besom)

I've been meaning to draw attention to this for a while. Zff19930930 edits Yola, but I am deeply suspicious about his actual competence in the language (or maybe it's his English that is lacking). The reason for this is the series of edits he has made at besom:
The original definition was "broom? (with the question mark), which he changed to "bosom?", then back to "bosom", then back to "broom", then to "faggot", then to "purblind" (when I asked him to clarify what sense of "faggot" was being used); all while changing the translation of the same word as used in the quote from "angry" to "faggot" to "stupid"; not to mention bizarrely striking out the word "angry" without supplying a correction. That's six different translations, of widely varying meaning. In addition, he copied the translation without giving a source (it can be found online at 1, 2, 3, etc.).
I raised this on his talk page, but the discussion was only half-productive. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Angry was given by the author Kathleen A. Browne. It's hard to translate "besom", please correct the translation. Zff19930930 (talk) 06:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

one big X

There is a idiomatic set of phrases starting "one big". E.g. this is one big disaster just waiting to happen. The sense of this is difficult to nail down, but it does not mean "a big disaster", neither it is really a use of "one" as a numeral. It seems to mean "this is a great big disaster, a huge disaster". Maybe "one big X" = "a huge X". But there is no Wiktionary entry? 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 13:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

The only example on Wiktionary is one big happy family, but no connection is made that this is a productive construction. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 13:39, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

This one big example is clearly to be interpreted as "one family, a family that is big and happy (singing kumbaya)".  --Lambiam 23:14, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, one can say “it was one big mess”, but “one total mess”^[6][7][8] and “one complete mess”^[9][10][11] are also used. This construction is also found for happy situations, as in “one incredible experience”^[12][13][14] and “one unforgettable evening”.^[15][16][17]

I think these are all instances of sense 2 of the use of one as a determiner, defined as “Used for emphasis in place of a”.  --Lambiam 23:50, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

The phrase "one angry dude" comes to mind, but "one big (happy) family" is different in its emphasis on oneness. I'm not so sure that "big" necessarily means anything beyond "large" in the latter phrase. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:22, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes, I hadn't spotted "one" in the meaning of "in place of 'a' as an intensifier". It must be that. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 03:51, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Thousand-yard stare

The description only states the military term it originates from. I have heard people in non-military scenarios say "He gave me a thousand-yard stare". So I'm suggesting a second meaning for someone giving this type of stare in any given situation, not just in the military. I'd like to know what others think of this. Supereditz (talk) 15:03, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

True that a person can be said to have such a stare even if their trauma came from non-combat causes. I edited the sense to an "especially" for the archetypal/cardinal class, as this is an instance where it seems wiser than viewing it as two senses. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:51, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

There's a link to the Wikipedia page that states the phrase is rooted in the military, so the amendment to use "especially" is certainly better than using two senses. Thank you for your input. Supereditz (talk) 03:22, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

yield (verb)

Permalink to referenced version: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=yield&oldid=83127423

Ignoring the first, obsolete definition, I am struggling to see how 1.2 and 1.3 are distinguished from each other, and, perhaps more importantly, from senses 3.x if that section was properly filled out. I am tempted to combine all these at least into one block, with subsenses as necessary, unless anyone can see a reason not to. Mihia (talk) 20:53, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that verb senses 1.2 and 1.3 need deduping. As for the three blocks ('give', 'surrender', 'produce') I can see an argument for how the 'give' and 'produce' ones don't necessarily need to be dichotomized the way they are. I do think that those two could reasonably be merged into one block, but it should remain a separate block from the 'surrender' block. My two cents. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:36, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

custom build

The term custom build and the (slightly less common) variant custom-build are used as a verb whose past and past participle form are, obviously, custom built and custom-built. ([18], [19], [20]) The verb is far less common than the adjective, and (according to Google Ngrams) gained traction later than the adjective, both in American English and in British English. Is this sufficient evidence to classify this as a back-formation?  --Lambiam 23:07, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

A good way to approach it for Wiktionary's purposes is to present the synchrony (participial adjective and verb as synchronic counterparts) and to state at Etymology that the verb is "likely a back-formation" from the other. Quercus solaris (talk) 07:08, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

fucked up meaning good

At 11:38 of this Gastronauts episode, someone uses this to mean something along the lines of "particularly good". I've occasionally encountered this in other places, too (in American slang), but I'm having a hard time finding other examples because the other meaning ("messed up, bad") is so common. Is anyone else familiar with it? The semantic evolution might be from sense 4 "incredibly intoxicated, lit" → "lit (approbative)", as also happened with lit. - -sche (discuss) 04:34, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this is probably youth slang, like the use of "wicked" to mean "good". Here is a thread on the use of fucked-up in the positive sense (it is stated there that it is mainly an American usage): https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/a-great-f-up-guy-expression.134119/ 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 14:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Definitely used with a positive valence, but not simply "good". I think of it as something like wild ("amazing, awesome, unbelievable"). DCDuring (talk) 15:00, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Added. Improve the definition if needed. The Wordreference thread seems like it might be a slightly different phenomenon, British(?) use to mean something perhaps more along the lines of ~"big, impressive"(?), vs this American use to mean "amazing, particularly good". - -sche (discuss) 18:50, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

grapevine

Page states grapevine is plural of grapevine. WTF? This is bullcrap, right? P. Sovjunk (talk) 09:09, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

This may refer to the citation under 2. there where we read "all army grapevine". I'm not sure this is plural as such; it seems like a collective singular to me. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 14:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

For sense 1, covered with/acres of grapevine seems almost as acceptable as covered with/acres of grapevines. For many organisms there may be countable individuals that, when massed together, become a mass, ie, uncountable. That doesn't necessarily carry over to other senses. But I doubt that this is a plural rather than uncountable. DCDuring (talk) 15:39, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

I see insufficient (near zero, couple of possible errors/rubbish) hits for "these/those grapevine are", suggesting that it is not in use as a plural. I think that the "army" example is probably meant uncountably, like the examples given by DCD, although the "army" example seems a bit unusual to me. On another point, I have personally never heard of the sense "a rumour" and I can't see it in a few other dictionaries I just checked. Apart from the debatable "army" example, the other two quotations that we have look potentially to originate from non-native speakers. Should we have some kind of label on this sense? Or do others here know it as standard? Mihia (talk) 14:49, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

• Fixed P. Sovjunk (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

గురుతుండు

On the page of the verb గురుతుండు, the definition is stated as "to remember". Shouldn’t this verb mean “to be remembered” instead of “to remember”? The example sentence “nīku adi gurutundā?” literally means “by you is it remembered?” I feel like this distinction should be made in the pages of this and similar verbs. RwiTexx (talk) 14:57, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Illustration for "roll one's eyes"

Could somebody post a photo, drawing or even a video clip of how someone may roll one's eyes? I think this is one instance where a graphic would help clarify the word better than a mere definition. 131.226.105.154 17:15, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

@ 2A0C:5A82:E60A:F900:25CA:DE86:17E3:4F49 17:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I added the only video clip at Commons. It doesn't really convey the evaluative element. DCDuring (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

There seem to be multiple ways people roll their eyes — or perhaps there is one underlying act and different people do it to different levels of exaggeration and completeness? I have seen and can find videos of some people rolling simply up (and back down), which I recently saw a viral post claim was the (neuro-)typical way to do it, whereas other people roll (up and) (from side) to the side (which the post claimed was the way neurodivergent people taking the phrase literally do it). - -sche (discuss) 18:57, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

do a power of good

What sense of power is used here? The mathematical one? @Mihia PUC – 20:32, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed that the relevant sense is the fourth one, but what is its origin? PUC – 20:43, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Beyond a certain point, there's not much to be gained from quibbling with idiom. Why shouldn't "a power of" mean a great deal of something? Apart from phrases like "a power of good", this use of "a power" is normally marked in dictionaries as dialectal. Noah Webster stated that this sue of "a power" was vulgar usage that was no longer current in his day in America. MW states this is dialectal. What is there to quibble with here? "Power" is not a word derived from the original Anglo-Saxon vocabulary: it is a Norman French borrowing from the 12th century. It is normally uncountable, with some exceptions. It is possible that pre-existing long-standing idioms led to the development of a countable "power=a great deal of". E.g. in Irish Gaelic, "neart" means "strength, power", but can also mean "a great deal of", e.g. "neart daoine" = a great many people. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 21:42, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

At [21] it says that this sense of "power" is from the 1660s and then "compare powerful" as if this might shed light on the sense development, but I can't see a connection particularly, no more than the oblique one seen with the "ordinary" sense of "power" itself ... Mihia (talk) 21:54, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I might be informative to use Strong's Concordance of the KJV Bible to see whether "power of" was used in a way that could be (mis)construed with the meaning "a great deal of". DCDuring (talk) 18:45, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

p>b in English

There are some English words where many people have a /b/ and not a /p/. Potato pronounced as botato (a baked "botato" e.g. 3:54 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRP225APFic). Pretend pronounced as bretend (e.g. 20.29 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVLkmBNOMxo&t=1229s). You can find lots of things like this on Youglish if you search for UK videos. Funnily enough, I can't find much or any academic comment on the /b/ pronunciations of these words, but they do exist - and are not listed in Wiktionary. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 21:56, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I question whether we need to, or indeed should, recognise this in our pronunciation sections. Mihia (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Dictionaries generally use phonemic rather than phonetic transcriptions, and so don't try to capture all the different ways in which a particular word may be pronounced by different people—that would be more suited for academic research. Where English is concerned, we currently provide transcriptions for major accents only. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I broadly agree with that, though a lot of pronunciations listed as RP are out-of-date or never that accurate in the first place. This discussion reminds me of the way we have a pronunciation given at thank and thanks with a voiced initial consonant 'dhank(s)' as well as the standard 'thank(s)' but I think this is more prevalent than 'botato' or 'bretend' and I hear the gentleman in the video simplifying the consonant cluster of the phrase 'baked potato' by saying it as 'bake potato' not 'baked botato' in any case (I prefer to say 'jacket potato' FWIW). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:43, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I think /ðæŋks/ is worth mentioning because you can easily find evidence that some speakers consistently pronounce the word this way and identify the first consonant as the phoneme /ð/ as opposed to /θ/: it's been a fairly commonly discussed topic online and some of these speakers are on record stating their intuitions about this. In contrast, I don't think Youtube videos by themselves are very clear evidence for a phonemic reanalysis of the first consonant of potato and pretend. Since these words start with an unstressed syllable, it seems plausible that /p/ might undergo phonetic lenition in this context, causing it to become unaspirated or even voiced, while still not being phonologically reanalyzed by the speaker as /b/.--Urszag (talk) 01:05, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Strange. I have never knowingly heard /ðæŋks/, and the idea that any native speaker would say that is completely weird to me. I suppose I may have encountered it but only heard what I expected to hear. Mihia (talk) 20:17, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I do not hear a [b] in either "potato" or "pretend" in those videos. Notably both of these examples are in unstressed syllables, so the /p/ may have little or no aspiration. Perhaps /p/ and /b/ thereby become merged, especially in "baked potato" where it follows a voiceless cluster; but the result will be an unaspirated [p], not a [b]. -- The case of "thanks" seems quite different to me. I've also heard it with [ð] several times. 92.73.31.113 03:37, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

[ð] is my usual realisation and extremely common to hear in the UK, and you can hear it in both the UK and Australian audios at thank you. I get the impression it's only in the US where [θ] predominates. Theknightwho (talk) 03:53, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

By "UK" audio, do you mean the one labelled "Received Pronunciation"? Both the RP and Australian audio clips at thank you sound clearly θ to me. I think there is something strange going on with this, and I read a comment elsewhere from someone saying that they had never heard θ, whereas to me it is the ubiquitous pronunciation. I think there are some psychological effects going on beyond the physical sound values. Mihia (talk) 10:03, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

give up

• (transitive, baseball) Of a pitcher: to allow a hitter to make (a certain play).

A good pitcher will give up very few home runs.

I don't know anything about baseball. Is this definitely a baseball-specific sense, or is it just an example of a general sense meaning something like "yield" or "concede"? Mihia (talk) Mihia (talk) 21:07, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Among the various kinds of sportsball, this sense of give up is not specific solely to baseball, as it can also be found in American football^{·google:"give up many yards"} and basketball as well.^{·google:"give up many rebounds"} Thus you are on the right track with the theme that it is general across multiple kinds of sportsball and might be glossed with such glosses as "yield", "concede", or "fail to prevent". (It is also not a million miles away cognitively from the mentalese beneath such things as "let slip", "give out", "hand out", "parcel out", and even "leak" (v.t.) and "drop" (v.t.), although those won't be useful for glossing-definition purposes.) My brain quizzed itself regarding non-sportsball uses (such as by sportsball metaphors in the business world), but for this term it came up empty on those. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:33, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

As for business and finnace, one could give up yield for lower risk in finance or give up performance for reliability when making a purchase. Give up would be glossed as "exchange", "trade off", or "forego". But the for phrase is mandatory, though it may be understood from context. One could give up a customer/a price point/a market segment in business. That seems like an extension of giving up territory/ground.

As to the "baseball" definition in question, it would not be limited to the pitcher. It could also be the team or, possibly, an individual defensive player. I think the same structure can be applied in any sport or game in which participants play defense (checkers?, go?). But even in races, one can give up the lead. DCDuring (talk) 00:36, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

As always, it wouldn't hurt to see whether the OED thought there were distinctive sports senses. DCDuring (talk) 03:33, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

So the definition as stated originally above could also be written: serve up, render, hand over; deliver or afford an opportunity to (i.e. allow) ? So the example A good pitcher will give up very few home runs means "A good pitcher will afford [the opposing team] [the opportunity] [to obtain] very few home runs" ? Reminds me of dish up: A good pitcher will dish up very few home runs. (?) Leasnam (talk) 04:14, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd say hand over is the closest of those. Regarding give up X in exchange for Y — that's a different sense in at least some cases, but maybe not all, the more I think about it. Discussion of what team A sacrificed strategically is sometimes involved, but not always. Usually the number of hits a pitcher gave up is somewhat like the number of drops of water a pail couldn't help leaking. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:31, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Whatever its syntactic role, semantically it's not active, but passive- it's not an action the subject of the sentence does, but something that happens to the subject, like dropping or losing something, or breaking/collapsing/falling apart. To make it active you would have to say they did it "on purpose" or "deliberately"/ Chuck Entz (talk) 07:27, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

• There are already overlapping senses at give up, or senses where there is no clear boundary. To some extent this is inevitable when a term has a continuum of meanings, but I do wonder whether we have one or two too many senses here. Anyway, I discern that a baseball-specific sense is not supported, so I will have to try to generalise it and merge it in somehow. Mihia (talk) 20:06, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

close (adj)

• Narrow; confined.

a close alley; close quarters

• 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 41, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC:

  a close prison

Are there any modern examples of this -- I mean in ordinary everyday use? (Alternatively, does anyone feel that examples such as "close alley" and "close prison" are in ordinary modern use?) As for "close quarters", yes, but this is a set phrase and, anyway, apparently by origin "close" means "closed" (which is a different sense*), and I would imagine that most modern speakers assume it means "near" (another different sense), so I don't quite see its applicability as an example of "narrow, confined". Mihia (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2024 (UTC) * although "closed" could mean "confined", I suppose ... I'd need to look further into this, but, in any case, it is now a fixed idiom whose literal origins, and literal meaning of "close", are not widely known to modern speakers.

Agreed. My assessment is that the right {{label}} for it is "archaic except in fossil use", because close quarters is active vocabulary that seems synchronically to contain the fossil although apparently that notion is mistaken via folk etymology, judging from the etym given. If I read "a close alley" in a 19th-century book I would know the intended sense, but as passive vocabulary rather than active vocabulary. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:15, 1 January 2025 (UTC)